Chapter 5
It was late the next evening when Heath rode into Lonesome Camp. There wasn't much to this place – one building beyond the fencing at the mine plus what looked like a barn behind it, some small ramshackle houses just beyond the mine entrance and after that some nondescript buildings that might have been a town once, including a sick looking church and the only building with any life in it that had to be the saloon. Heath rode to that building and hitched his horse.
The building had a sign on it that said it was a hotel as well as a saloon, not much of one to Heath's thinking but he'd been to worse. There was no livery he saw anywhere so he figured he'd have to ask about where to house his horse for the night. He grabbed his saddlebags and went into the saloon.
There were men in there, some laughing, some talking more quietly, some playing cards, all drinking. A heavy-set man behind the bar looked up Heath's way, and Heath noticed everyone else was looking his way too, including one pretty girl with dark hair and sad clothes. Heath stepped up to the bar and said to the man behind it, "I could use a drink, some food and a room for the night."
The heavy-set man poured Heath a shot of whiskey, saying, "I got no food and you'd be a fool to stay here." Heath was not surprised that he had an Irish accent.
The girl sidled up to Heath and said to the barman, "Murphy, ya got mutton in the back and even if the man would be a fool to stay here, you're the only room in town and number 8 is half decent."
She had an Irish accent too. Heath looked her way and gave her half a smile.
"Sonora is nine miles down the road and you'd find a lot better room and women there, son," Murphy said, glaring at Bridie.
"I'll take number 8 and some mutton," Heath said quietly, but firmly.
The girl said, "Give the man what he wants, Murphy. He's come a long way."
"Bridie, if himself finds out you're in here selling your wares – " Murphy said to the girl.
But she cut him off. "Ah, the back of me front to himself." Then she smiled at Heath. "Now you know who I am – what would your name be?"
"Barkley," Heath said, making sure everyone in the room heard it. "Heath Barkley."
Everyone, especially Murphy, perked up. But nobody smiled.
"You're one of the owners then," Bridie said.
Heath nodded and sipped his drink.
"What would you be doin' comin' here?" Bridie asked.
Heath looked at her, then around a little without being too elaborate about it. "Seeing how things are," Heath said.
"How things are," Murphy mumbled and went into the back room for the mutton.
"We've got no trouble here," an older man with an Irish accent at the other end of the bar said. "And nobody else has come here since Tom Barkley sold the mine."
"He didn't sell all of it," Heath said, "and Tom Barkley is dead."
"We heard," the old man said, "but that's all we heard and it sounds like all his pretty promises died with him."
"Tell me more. How have things been since he sold a piece of the mine?"
Several men laughed ugly laughs. The old man said, "How have things been, you'd like to know? Look around ya."
Heath took a look around. No one here was dressed very well, and there was one man on crutches.
The old man said, "We been goin' nowhere but downhill since Tom Barkley sold the mine. Bad timberin' – a company store that charges twice more than the stores in Sonora charge but who around here has time to go to Sonora? We work seven days a week with only the Sunday mornin' for church and one by one the men are just droppin'."
Bridie said, "Cord over there got a broken leg when the timberin' came down and we got no doctor here so we had to set it for him. He'll no be walkin' on it again."
Heath had the man with crutches look at him fiercely before turning away. Heath said, "This has been happening since Tom Barkley sold the mine?"
"The prices goin' up at the company store and the timberin' not gettin' fixed right – you bet, since the mine was sold to the vultures," the old man said.
Murphy came back with the mutton on a plate. He put it down in front of Heath. "Did you come to try to fix any of this?"
Heath said, "I came to find out what needs fixing."
"I could write you up a list," Murphy said, "but that don't mean a thing, does it? Tom Barkley made promises but they're no good when he's dead and his kin don't own the mine."
Heath said, "We still own part of it. I don't know what we can do to fix what needs fixing until I know what all is broken. I was sent up here to find out."
"Are you plannin' to talk to Murdoch at the mine?" the old man asked.
Heath nodded. "First thing in the morning. Do you have a telegraph office in Lonesome?"
"Murdoch has it in his office," Murphy said. "He lives up there too."
"Then I guess I'll eat up the mutton and head up to see him tonight," Heath said. "And I'll take room number 8."
Murphy said, "And I'll let ya have it – but boy, you'll be getting' one chance and only one chance around here. Things are quiet, but they're not gonna be stayin' that way forever. You best make sure that Murdoch and anybody else who owns the mine knows that."
Heath ate his food, got the key to room 8 and took his saddlebag up there. Then he went straight back out again, mounted his horse, and rode it up to the mine.
The main building there was not locked, and there was a light on inside, so Heath went right in. There was a counter inside and a door to another room, but Heath didn't see any person around until he closed the door. When he did, an older man came out from the other room. All he said was, "Who are you and what do you want?"
"I'm Heath Barkley," Heath said.
And that alone changed the man's attitude. He relaxed and came over, extending his hand. "It's good to see one of the family here. It's been a while."
"Are you Colin Murdoch?" Heath asked as he shook the man's hand.
"I am," Murdoch said. "What brings you up here?"
"That's a bit of a story," Heath said, "but mainly I've been sent to check out how things are going. From what I hear at the saloon, it's not going too good since the mine was sold."
Murdoch nodded slowly, frowning. "I can't say I'm too keen on how things have been run since that board of directors took over – and I'm a stockholder, so you bet I've got an interest beyond just my job."
"What's the problem? What do you need that you're not getting?"
"Maintenance of the mine has gone downhill, for one thing. Getting timber to replace what needs to be replaced is harder than it was. And the workers are getting more and more troublesome."
"Why?"
"Ask them at the saloon. They'll tell you."
"I already have, and they already have," Heath said. "I just want to hear what you think."
"We had a mercantile leasing out one of those buildings you saw out there, run by a fella who had a place in Sonora. The company owns everything around here and that building needed repair, but the company wasn't coming up with the money to do it, so the fella shut down. That leaves the company store, and prices went up right away."
"But wages didn't," Heath said.
"Not mine nor anybody else's," Murdoch said. "Food quality got worse too. Most of the folks have gardens, but getting the seed has cost them twice what it did before the mercantile moved out. And you best know this. There's a fella in town trying to unionize the workers."
"The company hasn't run him out?" Heath said.
Murdoch shook his head. "He just showed up about a week ago. I alerted the company but so far they haven't responded. I'm not inclined to try to run him out myself, because frankly, I have no back-up here and would need to get the law out of Sonora or troops the company gets from the governor, and I'd just as soon not do that. There's no call for it so far. There's been no damage done, nobody's making threats. Everything is uneasy but so far, the mine is still in operation and I'm just trying to keep things going."
"There's no school in this town is there?" Heath said.
"No," Murdoch said. "We had a teacher up until a couple months ago, but he moved on when I couldn't pay him anymore. The company cut the money for him. Father Clay at the church has been trying to fill in, but the only money he gets is from his parishoners, and with them paying double just to get by on this earth – well, they haven't had heaven on their minds lately."
"Have you talked to any of the directors about this?"
"I tried," Murdoch said. "I wrote them right after Tom Barkley was killed, but nobody ever wrote back and nobody ever came here."
Heath thought about it for a moment before he said, "It sounds to me like you might all be right on the edge of closing down the mine here."
"Either because the directors want it that way, or because the workers unionize and strike, and either way, it's going to be ugly as it can get," Murdoch said. "All I can do is try to keep the lid on and try to keep the mine producing so the company doesn't abandon it completely. But it seems to me that since the ownership went public, the directors are only concerned with cutting costs and getting what they can before they shut down completely. What Tom Barkley promised – decent store with good food at fair prices, well maintained mine, schooling for the kids – the new board is just letting things slide, like they want everything here to fail."
"But the mine is producing, isn't it?" Heath said. "How does it make any sense to strangle it when it's healthy?"
"I don't know," Murdoch said flatly. "The only way it can make sense is the somebody, or a few somebodies, are trying to get all the money they can out of it while putting as little into it as they can get away with."
"Raiders," Heath said.
"Yeah," Murdoch said, "and I'm sorry to say that, but whether it's true or not, the people here see the Barkleys as the biggest raiders in this – because they sold the company on the open market and allowed this new board of directors to raid the company rather than run it."